The very use of the term "colon cancer" tends to bring up fear in most of people. It can therefore feel very reassuring for your doctor say that you only have hemorrhoids. That there is no need to be concerned about the blood in your stool. However this reassurance ought to only come after the doctor has ruled out the likelihood of colon cancer (and other possibly dangerous gastrointestinal problems). Otherwise, you may not learn that you have colon cancer before it is too late. If a physician automatically considers that complaints of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding by a patient are due to hemorrhoids and it subsequently is discovered that the patient had colon cancer all along, that doctor might have committed medical malpractice. Under those circumstances, the patient may have a legal claim against that doctor.
Over 10 million men and women have hemorrhoids and another million new cases of hemorrhoids will likely arise this year. In contrast, a little over the 100 thousand new incidents of colon cancer that will be diagnosed . In addition, not all colon cancers bleed. In the event that they do, the bleeding could be non-consistent. Also based on the location of the cancer in the colon, the blood might not actually be apparent in the stool. Maybe it is in part due to the difference in the volume of cases being diagnosed that some physicians basically think that blood in the stool or rectal bleeding is from hemorrhoids. This is gambling, pure and simple. A physician making this diagnosis will be correct over 90% of the time. It appears sensible, right? The concern, though, is that if the doctor is inaccurate in this diagnosis, the patient may not learn he or she has colon cancer until it has progressed to a late stage, perhaps to the point where it is no longer treatable.
When colon cancer is found while still contained within the colon, the individual's five year survival rate will normally be over eighty percent. The 5 year survival rate is a statistical measure of the percentage of people who survive the disease for a minimum of five years following diagnosis. Treatment for early stage colon cancer normally entails only surgery in order to take out the cancerous growth and surrounding portions of the colon. Subject to factors including how advanced the cancer is and the individual's medical history , age, and the individual's physical condition, chemotherapy may or may not be recommended.
This is why doctors frequently advise that a colonoscopy ought to be ordered without delay if a patient complains of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding. A colonoscopy is a procedure whereby a flexible scope with a camera on the end is employed to visualize the interior of the colon. If growths (polyps or tumors) are discovered, they can be extracted (if small enough) or sampled and tested for the presence of cancer (by biopsy). Only if no cancer is detected from the colonoscopy can colon cancer be ruled out as a source of the blood.
But, if the cancer is diagnosed after it has spread past the colon and has reached the lymph nodes, the patient's five year survival rate will normally be roughly 53%. In addition to surgery to take out the tumor and surrounding portions of the colon treatment for this stage of colon cancer requires chemotherapy in an attempt to get rid of any cancer that might remain in the body. By the time the cancer reaches distant organs for example the liver, lungs, or brain, the patient's 5 year survival rate is lowered to near 8%. If treatment options exist for a patient at this stage, they may include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and other medications. Treatment might no longer be helpful the moment the cancer is this advanced. When treatment stops being helpful, colon cancer is fatal. This year, about forty eight thousand men and women will pass away in the U.S. from metastatic colon cancer.
As a result of telling the patient that blood in the stool or rectal bleeding as caused by hemorrhoids while not completing the appropriate tests to rule out colon cancer, a doctor puts the patient at risk of not knowing he or she has colon cancer before it reaches an advanced, possibly no longer treatable, stage. This might constitute a departure from the accepted standard of medical care and may end in a medical malpractice claim.
Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney focused on complex injury cases, including Medical Malpractice cases. You can learn more about cases involving
stage 4 colon cancer and related cancers such as
stage 4 breast cancer
